Head Exchange
by Helion
Summary: The Metallikats embark on another tour of looting, and it's up to Razor and T-Bone to stop the robotic couple. But, the Manges soon become secondary as the SWAT Kats experience some unexpected changes in staff.
1. Prologue

PROLOGUE

"The noise must've come from here."

The door to Dr. Stone's lab swung silently inwards. Sterile, bluish light from the hallway crept into the room, casting eerie shadows into semidarkness. Pumadyne security guard Kirkwood Smith switched the flashlight on and let its cone search the interior, from the left to the right.

A set of niches was set into the left wall, all niches filled with portable cages. Each cage over which the cone swept turned into turmoil, their white, nocturnal inhabitants disturbed by the light. The beam moved on to the table positioned at the wall opposite the door. On its left corner, another cage stood forlornly. Inside, a lab rat ran its frenzied rounds. The right corner of the table was empty.

Kirk let the beam shine down, onto the ground. A cage lay upside-down by the table-leg.

"There's our miscreant!" he observed. "The little rascal must have pushed the cage over the edge of the table. Luckily the lock didn't snap. Look, it's still inside."

His partner, lean and sporty beige-furred Ray Banister, stepped into the room and walked up to the cage with his short steps.

Kirk was 6 feet 4 inches tall, a head taller than Ray whose height was merely 5' 6". He also was much heavier, weighing almost 270 pounds. His stark black coat blended with the darkness as he followed into the room, staying close behind Ray. He let his flashlight fix on the cage.

"Good. So there's no chasing rats tonight." Ray watched the rat for any sign of attack as he carefully lifted the cage back onto the table. "Say, wasn't there something lying on the table yesterday? This thing Dr. Stone was working on?"

"How should I know?" Kirk answered. "You know the rules: On patrols, disturb the experimental animals as little as possible, and under no circumstances turn on the lights, lest they go crazy!

As long as I've had the morning shift, I've never seen anything in this laboratory besides grey. C'mon, let's go now. The coffee is getting cold!"

Upon his turning, the flashlight swept over the right side of the room for the first time.

"Wait…" Ray started to say when he saw the outline of a figure at the wall.

The intruder was aiming at the guards. A green flash like the fire of an energy canon hit them before they could react. The beam left them dizzy. The burglar bumped into Ray's shoulder as he brushed past them, but Ray was unable to stop him. Something was wrong with his sense of orientation…

Then, the thief reached the door and pressed the light switch beside it, escaping into the corridor.

The lights in the ceiling started to wink and finally stayed a brilliant white that brought racket to the rows of cages.

Ray didn't care about the rats anymore. The horrified look on his partner's face was much like his own. In fact, it *was* his own, for standing next to him was Ray Banister.

Kirk looked up at the shocked face of Kirkwood Smith towering in front of him. Shaking, he held up his right hand. Its fur was beige instead of the usual black.

"HOLY KATS!" the two Pumadyne security guards shouted as one.


	2. The bombing

TITLE:

HEAD EXCHANGE

AUTHOR:

Helion

BEGIN OF WRITING:

February 18, 2002

FINISHED WRITING:

March 11, 2002

FINAL CHECKING:

April 8, 2002

EMAIL:

helion.regret@gmx.net

RATING / WARNINGS:

PG some mild peril

SYNOPSIS:

The Metallikats embark on another tour of looting, and it's up to Razor and T-Bone to stop the robotic couple. But, the Manges soon become secondary as the SWAT Kats experience some unexpected changes in staff.

LEGAL NOTICE:

'SWAT Kats - The Radical Squadron' and the characters of the show are the property of Hanna-Barbera Cartoons.

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

Okay, so I was down and in extreme need of a change - I guessed a positive SWAT Kat story would lift me up. The latest SWAT Kats Fan Fiction Archive "challenge" offered the perfect setting for such a fic. As usual, the thing got out of hands (I just can't write short, although I *desperately* want to!).  
  
The events in "Head Exchange" take place *before* "Nemesis".

CHALLENGE RULES:

[As started by Cherry Koivula and posted at http://skarchive.0catch.com/challenge.htm]  
Write a story about what would happen if Chance and Jake switched bodies. The story can be however long you want, and they have to get their bodies back.

* * *

HEAD EXCHANGE

* * *

Rygel (in Crichton's body): "Why? Why would they want us to switch bodies? Why?"  
Crichton (in Aeryn's body): "I don't know, but if this is some kind of sick experiment I'm billing them for the therapy."

-- Farscape _(Episode 2.09 "Out of their minds")_

* * *

"It's not over yet, buddy."

-- T-Bone (or Razor…?) in _Cry Turmoil _

* * *

FOUR YEARS LATER

"Two minutes!" T-Bone warned.

"Copy," Razor hissed through teeth clamped shut with concentration. His eyes never trailed off toward the timer counting down. 1:55 - 1:54 - 1:53.

T-Bone suppressed a sigh. Razor was disarming the bomb, and he stood by absolutely helplessly. Not only was it impossible for two kats to work on the wiring of the detonator, but also Razor was the one of them who had the knowledge to neutralize it.

He forced his eyes off the barrel encasing the deadly explosive, off his best friend and partner kneeling in front of it, and looked around.

City Hall's underground parking lot was altogether illuminated, but only sparsely filled with cars. At 7:15 P.M., the bulk of the mayor's workforce had already left for home. And, the rest, T-Bone guessed, must have fled the building, provided that Deputy Mayor Briggs had managed to warn and evacuate them. Which, undoubtedly, she had.

T-Bone's gaze came to rest on the sand-colored tom lying tied up on the ground of lot twenty-eight, some fifteen feet away from them. Maybe he could help Razor after all…

He quickly walked over and shook the form by his shoulders, hardly gently.

"HELLO, Mr. Bomber! This is neither the time nor the place to play Sleeping Beauty, you psycho!"

His efforts were in vain, however. "Crud, he won't wake up!"

"Sure he won't," came Razor's strained voice, "you knocked him out, remember?"

Still busy with admiring his precious creation, the bomb planter had tried to make a run for it when the SWAT Kats had suddenly appeared in the parking lot. T-Bone, who had rushed in first, had stopped his escape with a Spider Missile. The thug had slammed into the wall, an impact from which he had passed out.

"Hey, don't tell me you would have done different, Razor."

"No, I wouldn't have."

"So what…?"

"You see Callie's car over there?" Razor asked, keeping his concentration fixed on the bomb.

T-Bone turned his head. "Of course, I see it."

The bottle green vehicle was impossible to miss. It stood solemnly in the middle of the parking lot - halfway between the bomb and the door through which the bomber had tried to flee when T-Bone's missile had greeted him.

"Well, if I had taken on this guy, he would have never made it as far as to her car!"

T-Bone's dumbfounded expression soon turned into a grin. "Oh, yeah…? Too bad you're such a poor sprinter! There's nothing left over for the ones who come in second in line. Same as at the obstacle course…"

T-Bone walked back to stand beside his partner and saw the smile on his face.

Razor removed another metal plate from the barrel. His smile faded away and the smart remark that surely had been about to come died on his lips as he exposed the core of evil. His eyes flickered over to the digital clock.

"Fifty seconds," T-Bone stated.

His partner cautiously cut through the insulation of the wires that led to the ignition device, checking for live wires with his glovatrix's gadgets.

"What's the matter, pal," joked T-Bone to hide his tension, "just cut the red wire and be done."

"Ehm, T-Bone…" Razor moved his body to the side so that T-Bone could see the ignition device. It was connected to three wires: one wire had a bluish insulation, one was green, and one was yellow.

"Oops…"

Razor shifted back to the opening. "Hmm… Green's outta the question. I'll have to cut either the blue wire or the yellow one. One will deactivate the bomb. Guess the other will blow it up…"

A sudden beeping sound drew their attention to the counter.

0:20

_Beep_

0:19

"The yellow one," T-Bone shouted.

"The blue one," Razor said at the same time.

_Beep_

"The blue one, then," T-Bone agreed on Razor's decision. "Now, hurry and finish this devil off…"

"Afraid?" Razor grinned tautly.

"Nah! But, Feral will give us a ticket for parking the TurboKat in a no-landing zone if we're staying for too long!"

Chuckling, Razor leaned forward and grabbed the blue cable with a pair of pincers.

0:10

"No, wait!

You're right, T-Bone. It must be the yellow one." He loosened his grip on the pair of pincers again and left the blue wire uncut, positioning his tool on the yellow one.

0:07

"Razor, are you sure? I mean, I don't have…"

0:05

Razor turned his head and looked up at his friend. "It's the yellow wire. Trust me."

0:02

T-Bone just nodded.

Razor cut the wire.

***

The fiery orange mushroom of an atomic explosion rose over the city center, consuming everything near its stem. The radioactive cloud turned grey whilst the shockwave spread out from the core, a deadly concentric sledgehammer of air and heat and debris. Houses, cars and trees looking convincingly like papier-mâché folded in on themselves just as papier-mâché would, and were blasted away by the unnatural force of a giant wind machine.

An auburn Corvette was parked on a small hill at the city's perimeter, five miles away from the epicenter of the inferno. Like torchlight, reddish flames reflected on the windshield, throwing their demonic glow on the passengers inside.

Physicist Dr. Isaac Olton was frantically rewiring some machinery out of a cheap science fiction movie props room that was installed between the driver's and the passenger's seat, connected to the car's electricity circuits. Dr. Olton was a great authority in his field, but now he was plainly fighting against what he was desperately trying to stop: time.

Connected to the time traveling apparatus was a 6-inch black-and-white monitor. Isaac hit it with his palm. It stayed dark.

"I told the investors I had almost made the breakthrough. But, they wouldn't hear me out, Mary. Thanks to them, the city's fate depends on some low-priced scraps from a second-hand electrical store and on a car battery that has been in use for too many years.

I'll have to initialize the time jump before that blast hits us, Mary.

Mary…?"

Dr. Olton took the time to look up.

On the passenger's seat, Mary had fainted from shock.

"Don't worry, Mary. I'll save us," he soothed, resuming his work with the electrics.

Connecting two more wires, he concentrated on the monitor again. It stayed dark. He leaned forward, and forward, until only the monitor filled the screen.

A second passed by.

And, another.

The monitor switched to…

_…Scaredy Kat…?_

"Chaaaaannnccccceeeee!"

"I've had enough world saving for today, buddy."

"We're watching a free-TV premiere and you're zapping to an umpteenth rerun of Scaredy Kat just when the film gets captivating!"

"Oh, Jake, face it," Chance said, his eyes never leaving the cartoon, "the film is awful."

If Chance saw the scornful look Jake shot him, he deliberately ignored it.

"They try to save the city from a fanatic megalomaniac, and on their way stumble across several clichés. The bad guy curiously happens to be *his* ex-student and *her* ex-boyfriend… Wanna hear more?"

"No! It's just a flick to forget about everything for a while. I didn't expect a waterproof storyline. In fact, the story has half a dozen holes.

The car's electrics working despite the nuclear EMP, a shockwave spreading out at a snail's speed, Mary passing out without obvious reasons but stereotyped characterization… Mary! Physicists Dr. *Isaac Olton* and Dr. *Mary Courier*, doesn't that tell you something? Then, of course, time traveling always includes a paradox…

BUT, I wanted to *see* that movie!"

"Hey, look what happens when Scaredy Kat opens the tomb."

Groaning, Jake lifted his body from the couch. Whatever they had lived through together as the SWAT Kats, however great their friendship, it seemed they'd never agree upon such a simple thing as the TV program. It beat him what Chance would find so funny about a simple cartoon that repeated its gags at least five times in a single episode.

Down on the sofa, Chance was caught in a fit of laughter from Scaredy Kat's latest encounter with a mummy.

Walking out of the room, Jake realized that he was smiling, nevertheless. Perhaps Scaredy Kat wasn't his kind of comedy, but it made Chance laugh, and it was good to see that Chance had his humor back. When Jake had cut the yellow wire on the bomb a tad more than an hour back, he had feared for a long second that they would not ever smile again. But, the counter had stopped its countdown at 0:01. Even then, they had both just managed a wan grin.

Sometimes, they could use a little bit of cheering up. If Scaredy Kat could give that to Chance, then he should watch Scaredy Kat as long as he liked! He would work on the Blowtorch Missiles in the meantime.

The klaxon went off with a wail.

Jake hit the communicator at the wall to stop the siren. "What can we do for you, Ms. Briggs?"

Chance stood next to him not a second later.

"SWAT Kats, it's the Metallikats. They are raiding the Annual Charity Gambling."

"We're on our way," Chance shouted, and the SWAT Kats-to-be bolted off to the hangar.

"I thought you had enough world saving for today, bud," Jake teased when they reached the access hatch.

"You know," Chance retorted, climbing down the ladder behind his partner, "I just can't turn down the city's request for help."

"The city's request, huh? Too bad," Jake answered in mock-woe, "I was so keen on flying the TurboKat for once."

Chance missed a step, and a chuckling Jake outdid him in reaching the lockers.

"Nothing personal, buddy," Chance said upon opening the 'TB'-marked left locker, "but as long as I've some say in this matter, I'll never see your body in the pilot's chair again, flying my jet!"

Jake grinned enigmatically. "If you say so… But, even you have to sleep occasionally…"

Chance looked at him thoroughly mystified. "You wouldn't dare to… Or would you…? Jake…?"

Jake was unable to stifle his laugh any longer. To escape Chance's glower, he turned away from him and grabbed the remote for the giant TV wall screen.

He switched on the screen.

"…is Ann Gora, Kats Eye News, *finally* live on air. The SWAT Kats could prevent the bombing of City Hall an hour and a half ago, but it still casts its ugly shadow on our program schedule.

The evacuation of downtown has brought disaster on MegaKat City's flow of traffic, and all arterial roads are still jammed due to the detours. We're sorry for our delayed airing, but as even the air traffic has been rerouted away from the city center, we had no possibility to reach the eastern city border sooner."

Ann's face shrunk in size as the camera zoomed out. A spectacularly illuminated building began to show in the rear.

"Behind me is the Royal Lion Casino, MegaKat City's greatest casino, where right now the Second Annual Charity Gambling is taking place despite the chaos.

This evening, MegaKat City's rich and famous are gambling for a good cause. The allowance they will lose at the roulette tables, at the blackjack tables and at the slot machines will be donated to public institutions that are in desperate need of money to maintain their services.

Called into being on an initiative from Mayor Manx last year, the last Annual Charity Gambling was a great success in collecting donations, and at the same time offered a fair chance for some of MegaKat City's stars to brush up their scratched images.

However, the Second Annual Charity Gambling has not only been subject to praise but also to some criticism. In the second half of the evening, when the mayor will present the MegaKat City Gratitude Awards to persons and institutions who have rendered the city a great service, many citizens wonder why the Enforcers, represented by Commander Feral and Lieutenant Commander Steele, will be given an award for their services, whilst MegaKat City's masked heroes, the SWAT Kats, are not even invited."

"We received an invitation a minute ago," Chance – now T-Bone – said not without a slight edge in his voice.

"Yeah, to act as bouncers," Razor added.

The friends slapped hands. "Let's kick some robot tail," they shouted in unison and ran to their jet.

On the screen, Ann Gora had walked over to the casino's entrance. "That's odd," she said rather unprofessionally, "where are the security kats?"

The camera pan Johnny did couldn't find anyone either. He moved the camera back to the colossal closed door Annie was knocking on.

After half a minute, Ann Gora had to acknowledge that the kats inside wouldn't open up the door for her. "As it seems, this year, the Annual Charity Gambling is more than ever a private party."


	3. At the Royal Lion Casino

Mac and Molly Mange, better known as the Metallikats, dropped the unconscious security kats to the floor like some sacks of wheat. Mac aimed his noteworthy built-in arsenal on the nearest kats in the retreating crowd while his wife closed the doors behind her and welded them shut to block the exit.

"Listen up, you rich low-lives," Mac boomed out in his metallic voice. "It's like this: you want to donate your pocket money to the poor. And, that's exactly what you'll do. You'll give the money *TO US*!"

He held up the giant sack with his left hand. Molly had a similar exemplar with her.

"The exits are locked shut. If you want to live to tell about this at the racetrack, you better fill the sack with your belongings when it is passed to you!"

Molly walked over to a famous opera singer nearby and tore a collar from her neck. "And, don't forget about your necklaces, golden cigarette cases, rings and jewelry. We want *it all*!"

"Yeah, that's right!" Mac put in needlessly.

"Think you can handle them?" Molly asked.

"Aww, whadya think some shivering wealthy cowards can do? Blind me with their fake-teeth smiles? Getchaself some load!"

"Just watch out for the pests," Molly grumbled, walking away from Mac between two rows of slot machines.

"Hey, you," Mac pointed his weapons on a middle-aged kat to his left. He threw the sack to him. "Guess yer the lucky no. 1!"

***

At the very same time at which the also-too-late-because-of-the-bombing deputy mayor noticed the parked Metallikat Express near the casino and informed the SWAT Kats, a grim-faced Ulysses Feral and a white-shaded Lt. Commander Steele shared a table close to the speaker's platform.

"It's the Metallikats," Steele stammered.

"I can see that myself, Steele," Feral shot back angrily.

"So…sorry, sir. Why are they splitting up?"

Molly Mange ignored the panicked guests completely. She walked away from the masses until she stood before a door labeled with a sign stating 'personnel only.' Within seconds, she had forced it open with her superior strength and was vanishing in the corridor behind.

"The strongroom!" Feral realized suddenly. "She's heading for the strongroom. The casino must keep millions in reserve. Mac keeps the guests busy, stealing their small change, and by the time he is finished with the job, Molly has raked in the big bucks."

He bent down and retrieved his gun from his ankle holster under his tuxedo. "But, if we can delay her until our backup arrives, then the Enforcers will greet them as soon as they leave the casino.

Let's go, Steele. Molly Mange must have reached the vault by now."

He stood up, but the lieutenant commander hesitated.

"I… I don't think that's such a good idea. I… I mean… these people need some protection, too. What will they do when…"

Feral knew what Steele was heading at. He growled. "I don't have time for this, Steele! You want to tell me you have never been in an actual fight, right?" He didn't wait for a response. "Most likely, I'm better off without you, anyway."

"Yes, sir!" a visibly relieved Steele answered.

"And, Steele…" Feral added before turning away, "should you manage to do something stupid up here, I swear by the Holy Kats your sole duty up until retirement will be to clean the rookies' training weapons! Understood?"

The, "yes, sir," was not so highly motivated this time.

Commander Feral sneaked over to the door, paying special attention to Mac's field of vision being blocked by as many guests as possible.

Feral closed the door behind him and took his mobile phone out of his inside pocket. Following the trail of destruction, he dialed. "This is Feral. Bring me chopper backup to the Royal Lion Casino ASAP!"

***

Mac made good progress with his looting. It was astounding how quick people could be in donating their belongings when an armed-to-the-teeth robot asked them nicely. The sack had filled considerably already when the next victim brought a grin to Mac's artificial face.

"Well, well, Lt. Commander Steele. I'm shocked to see a familiar face," Mac spat sarcastically. "So, the Enforcers want to donate for the charity, too! Put it there," he ordered.

Steele's expression was more anger than fear as he threw his money purse into the sack. "That…"

"…is a very nice watch you got there, lieutenant commander," Mac concluded for him. "I could do well with one like that!"

A glower on his face, Steele parted with his titanium wristwatch.

"My thanks to the Enforcers for their most generous offering. Speaking of the Enforcers, where is Comma…"

Several detonations blew the door off its hinges and into the room. Mac turned around just in time to be greeted by a Spider Missile from Razor's glovatrix. The Metallikat lost the sack and was lifted off his feet. The force of the hit threw him into a roulette table some thirty feet behind him. Both table and robot went down with a crash.

"GET OUT," T-Bone shouted above the noise, and dozens of kats stampeded toward the reopened exit.

"Where is Molly?" Razor looked around somewhat baffled.

Surprisingly, Steele hadn't run off with the masses and came to his aid. "She headed for the strongroom," he pointed. "Commander Feral has gone after her."

Behind them, an orchestra of screeches began as Mac unburied himself from under the roulette table.

The SWAT Kats exchanged a look. Razor knew, even without seeing them, that T-Bone rolled his eyes under his bandana.

"I'll save the commander. You take care of Mac," he said to Razor and darted off.

"Alright," Razor acknowledged to himself. He faced the Metallikat while Steele, his duty done, headed for outside.

"Fun's over, flyboy!" Mac greeted him and added a round of machine gun fire.

Razor dashed to the side, ducking behind a slot machine. He ran down the row at top speed. Mac tried to track him down, but the bullets only slammed into the machines covering his run, causing them to sparkle and spill coins. At the end of the row, Razor threw himself to the ground and, slithering forward, flipped onto his back as he shot out into the open again.

He aimed his glovatrix at the Metallikat and fired a missile back before the wall stopped his glide. The missile hit Mac's upper body and exploded in a fireball. A cloud of smoke covered the spot where he had stood.

Razor waited at the bottom of the wall, panting.

Seconds later, two red eyes shone in the mists. Mac walked out of the fog, his body unscratched.

"Is that the best you can offer, SWAT Kat?" he pointed his arm at Razor.

Razor analyzed the situation in a flash. Five meters before Mac, a huge chandelier hung from the ceiling. An idea came to his mind instantly.

Just when Mac fired an explosive, Razor fired a slug at Mac with his cement machine gun. Not waiting to see if it would find its mark, he raised his glovatrix arm and shot a grappling hook at the candelabra, activating the winch.

The cement hit Mac in the face, drying up and blinding him. He hastily wiped it away, just in time to see how the wall where Razor had sat exploded with an impressive bang.

"Seems your partner will have to work solo in the future!"

"T-Bone can do well on his own," came the voice from behind him.

Razor had pulled himself away from the wall with the rewinding grappling hook cable. He had stopped the winch and used the cable dangling from the chandelier like a liana. With the speed thus acquired, he had passed Mac by and swung back round.

The Metallikat turned in time to see Razor's feet rushing up his torso. The impact sent him flying in a high arc, and he landed between the slot machines. Two more missiles turned his landing zone into a metal junkyard before Razor let go of the cable and landed, somersaulting, on the ground.

"But, Commander Feral always causes trouble," Razor said, taking three adhesive mines from his belt and throwing them under the ceiling above the wreckage.

The mines stuck to the ceiling and began to blink while Mac tried to get free of the debris.

"It takes two of us to watch over him! So, I can't extend this warm-up."

The blinking stopped, and the mines exploded. The three-feet-thick false ceiling came down on a space nine feet in diameter and buried the Metallikat beneath its massive weight.

"Don't move while I'm gone," Razor said as he spurted after his partner.

***

The casino's strongroom was about as large as Feral's office at Enforcer Headquarters. Several six-feet-high safes stood in rows in its middle, and there were safe deposit boxes in each wall up to a height of four feet.

The sack in her left hand baggy already from the deposit boxes, the robotic she-kat opened another safe. A heading in the interior stated "COUPONS," and each compartment was labeled with a different maturity date.

Molly turned away disappointed. "Duh, no money! Where's the money?"

"Molly Mange, you're under arrest!"

"Well, well, if it ain't Commander Feral," she spat, not unlike her husband, upon turning around. She raised her right arm and fired at the commander standing at the vault gate.

Feral clumsily jumped out of the way, landing behind another safe. A rush of heat seared his clothes as a second explosion erupted closer to him. The strengthened metal floor shook under the detonation blast, and the safe he was using as cover tipped over to the side. Feral vainly lifted his hands against the falling mass, but if the safe hadn't tipped against the wall with its upper side, it would have crushed him under its weight.

The commander hurriedly crept out of the recess. The safe came down just when he'd pulled his legs away from beneath. Standing up, he missed his gun. He had lost it in his leap; it lay some good five feet away from him with no chance whatsoever for him to reach it fast enough.

"Say goodbye, commander," Molly grinned and aimed once again.

Two silver flashes passed into the room. One hit Molly's arm and jerked it around hard, her fire missing the commander by far. The other TurboBlade ripped through the sack just below her hand, making it fall to the floor. Its valuable content instantly spilled out.

"One-sided heavy carrying causes bad posture, Molly!" T-Bone shouted.

"SWAT Kats," the she-kat hissed and trained her weapons' arm on the tabby.

T-Bone rolled to the left, out of the burst of fire. Molly's bullets missed him and ricocheted off the gate behind him under sparks. He came up on his knees again and lifted his glovatrix.

The Spider Missile hit Molly in the chest and propelled her into the backside of two safes she had robbed only a minute ago. The Metallikat went down in a heap, the heavy safes crushing down on her.

Feral had reached his weapon in the interim. "The Enforcers can handle it from here, SWAT Kat," he bawled at T-Bone.

"Sure, commander," T-Bone retorted acerbically, but he did not step back.

One of the two safes came suddenly flying in his direction as Molly broke free from under it. T-Bone dodged it in the last moment, distracted for a second.

Molly seized a weapon from a compartment in her thigh. "The show's over!"

Feral's laser fire bounced off the Metallikat's hide without leaving even a scratch while she directed its muzzle at him.

From where he stood, the second safe barred T-Bone's line of fire to Molly. Reflexively, he therefore ran up to the commander, to push him out of the fire line.

Molly Mange's computer routines processed the SWAT Kat's action, and a program simulating a kat's emotions of thrill and excitement brought a grin to her hydraulic jaw. She had expected a stupid reaction like this from the meddling vigilante.

In the instant she pressed the trigger, however, she detected another input she had *not* expected.

"Molly!" Razor's scream came to her ears, and a non-artificial curiousness she still hosted in her robotic form led her to turn to the voice. On turning, she released the charge.

A green flash fanned out and enveloped the SWAT Kats.

T-Bone slammed into the commander and they were knocked down by the impetus; Razor collapsed on the spot, confused and shocked.

But, Molly didn't make use of the situation. Another inartificial feeling had taken hold of her: worry.

If Razor was down in the vault, then… "MAC?" she shouted with a metallic voice convincingly drenched in fret. She ran off for her husband, bumping into Razor and passing him by easily.

Razor merely stayed put, bewilderment still on his face.

Commander Feral noticed it, too. "SWAT Kats, you let her escape!" he shouted. Still on the ground from T-Bone's shove, he stood up and brushed the metal dust from his tuxedo.

He strode over to Razor directly and pushed his finger into his face. "And, without any resistance at that. This was Enforcer business, and you let her escape! If you ever interfere again, I'll arrest you for hindering the authority, no matter how often you have saved this city!"

He received no angry answer. In fact, he received no answer at all. Quite surprised, but taking the silence as victory, Commander Feral grunted once and left the vault.

***

The glee over his verbal triumph over the SWAT Kats had been driven away almost completely when Commander Feral stepped out of the casino's entrance. He had hoped that his chopper backup had arrived in time to arrest the Metallikats, yet there was still no sign of air support, and the Metallikats were gone.

With Molly's help, a somewhat dented Mac had freed himself from the ceiling, and together the Manges had disappeared into the dark with the Metallikat Express, unhindered by the civilians outside.

He sighed. At least the Metallikats hadn't thought about taking Mac's sack of loot with them. Which meant that he could explain to the news reporters how he had successfully stopped the Metallikats' raid…

"Commander. Are you alright, sir?"

Feral grimaced. "The SWAT Kats let the Metallikats escape."

His adjutant's eyes widened. "The SWAT Kats? But…"

A sudden noise caused Feral and Steele to raise their heads. From the helicopter-landing platform on top of the Royal Lion Casino, the TurboKat's VTOL engines lifted her arrow head-shaped figure into the air, and the jet shot off into the night. Soon, the bluish afterglow of its thrusters was the only thing that could be seen of the SWAT Kats' jet.

Had it been day, they would probably have noticed the odd casting in the cockpit: Razor piloted the TurboKat; T-Bone sat on the weapon officer's seat.


	4. Awakenings

Jake thrashed about wildly and woke up from the movement. Still disorientated from his slumber, he blinked twice, thrice, as he tried to get a clear focus on the windowsill.

There was a full moon this night, casting its shimmering light into Jake's bedroom like giant silvery cobwebs. Except for Chance's breathing, the world was silent; the salvage yard was remote, far off the greater traffic roads, and no sounds traveled as far as to the garage. It was a peaceful night.

Somehow, Jake found it eerie.

He turned his head and yawned. Four-forty, the red digital display of his alarm clock shone into his face dispassionately, yet almost insultingly: _You're awake much too early!_

Jake yawned again. He was dog-tired, but he couldn't drop off again. His sleep this night had been uneasily, haunted by nightmares. For the moment, he couldn't remember what they had been about; they'd been too strange to remember. Just the way nightmares were: odd.

Perhaps the full moon was the reason for his bad dreams. Many kats couldn't sleep well on a full moon, though he usually could. There had always existed theories that imputed something supernatural to the stars, blamed the constellations for causing restlessness. Jake, however, could only chuckle over these theories. They were nonsense, and a scientific explanation was more logical, although more unsatisfying: the full moon's light simply shone too brightly.

From the window, the star's beams could fall directly onto his bed and into his face. Jake could even make out his arms' striped fur in the twilight.

_Stripes…?_

"Oohhhhh…" Startled, he sat up. But, this was even weirder a feeling. He lost his balance and fell out of his bed, landing on his stomach with an, "ouff".

Alarm drove out the last rest of his drowsiness. The last evening's events came back to his mind. The Metallikats… The weapon's blast…

Fighting with his sense of balance as well as with an unusually heavy body weight, Jake stumbled to the light switch. He hoped for a split-second with an almost childish naivety that it was a bad dream after all; that he would wake up when he just turned on the lights.

He pushed the switch and his hopes melted away. With the light, his tabby mirror image reflected in the window glass.

And, Jake suddenly realized: It hadn't been Chance's breathing he had heard… It was his own!

***

Chance couldn't sleep well, either; Jake knew the minute he left his bedroom. The door to his friend's room stood ajar, the bed was empty. Chance Furlong and an uneasy slumber – an odd combination, though a combination that occurred betimes. On such occasions, he usually went into the living room and tried to get some shuteye while watching television from the couch.

Which was exactly where Jake found him, clad only in boxer shorts, snuggled under a blanket that had to a certain extent shifted from the sofa onto the floor as a result of Chance's constant shifting. Maybe Chance could doze, but it was still a troubled sleep.

The TV was on, its tube the only source of light in the otherwise dark room. In tune with the vivid play, guttural, unnatural screams and sounds made the program, which could be nothing else but another Scaredy Kat Marathon. In this melee of cartoon voices, Chance's snoring was quiet by way of comparison.

Jake looked down on the figure on the couch, mesmerized.

_This can't be me. I don't look like this,_ was his first thought.

For lying down on the sofa, sleeping, was Jake Clawson.

Shutting his eyes and moaning silently, Jake felt the dire urge to pinch himself to recheck if this was all a dream. But, he didn't have to; his shoulders were aching anyway. On his way down to the living room, he had bumped into every doorframe. It was as if his shoulders were suddenly broader, and that he had to keep a greater distance from the frame with his body.

_It is true. My shoulders *are* broader. Because they are Chance's shoulders. Because I *am* Chance. Because…_

Because he and Chance had switched bodies.

_Somehow, Molly's weapon influenced our minds…_

Chance groaned and stirred. His eyes fluttered open, and he looked around dazed. His eyes fell upon his friend's indistinct silhouette.

"Morning, Jake," he yawned.

On Chance's greeting, Jake wondered at how strange his own voice sounded, more like a recording. He could hardly believe that this was how Chance registered his words all the time. But, there was more to it. Under Jake's tone of voice, he could still make out Chance's stress patterns. It was a funny mix of two voices being blended into one.

Jake grasped that his voice would be abnormal as well.

"Morning, Chance," he answered.

At first, Chance simply closed his eyes again. And, then…

"What the…?" Chance bolted upright, but experienced a similar lightheadedness at being stuck in Jake's body. With a, "whoaaaa", he involuntarily got off the couch. The hard way…

As Jake watched himself fall to the floor, a distant memory stirred in the back of his mind. Something he had said a long, long time back: _"You know, Chance, this is all too weird. I mean DarkKat… Feral. It's like déjà vu."_

And, Jake couldn't help it; he started to laugh. Even as he saw Chance – or, rather, Jake Clawson – watch him with a mishmash look of confusion, worry and anger, he couldn't stop. He laughed harder.

The complete last years as the SWAT Kats had been 'too weird', but, apparently, they'd just found something to top it off.

***

The yogurt tasted more bitter than usual. Chance couldn't say whether this was because it was practically not *him* eating the yogurt, but rather Jake, and that yogurt generally had a sour flavor for Jake, or if it was just that his taste reflected Chance's mood.

Swallowing another spoonful, Chance decided that it was the latter.

His friend stood a couple of meters away from him, next to the telephone, dialing.

_Jake… _ *Of course*, it was Jake. It *could only* be Jake, as Chance *knew* that *he* was *himself*, and so he must be watching *Jake*.

But, Jake looked convincingly like Chance Furlong.

Chance snorted. _What a way to wake up: first there's this headache almost paralyzing you, and then you realize that it isn't even *your* head that's aching!_

The thought didn't make him smile, though. How should it…? He was stuck in Jake's body. He hadn't even known such a thing could be possible! Now, he couldn't even clearly remember *how it had begun*!

He had fought with Molly, and she had fired at him with some kind of weapon… That was as much as he had memorized. The rest of the evening up to this morning was just one big blank. The TV news reports brought back some vague images, jigsaw puzzle-like. Heck, from the tiny pieces Chance knew, he'd even subscribe to Feral's statement naming the commander the hero of the day!

"Hello, Professor Hackle…

Yes, it's me, T-Bone! I'm sorry for the early call. I hope I didn't wake you up…?"

_T-Bone!_ Chance snapped back to the present at Jake's words. At least Jake seemed to have adapted to the situation. The last night was as murky in Jake's mind as it was in his, but, unlike him, Jake was already laughing again this morning.

_Yeah, and he doesn't fall onto all fours every few minutes like a toddler undertaking his first steps, either! Whereas I…_

"Yes, the Metallikats…"

Chance still was a little irritated at Jake's laughs in the living room. The reason for his annoyance was simple: Jake was positive that they could get things back to normal again. Chance didn't quite share Jake's optimism.

"Professor, Molly Mange had some new weaponry with her, and we wonder if the Metallikats have broken into your lab. Are you missing something? A handgun that has the power to affect a kat's mind; to alter it?"

Jake had argued that in the moment of Molly's firing, the SWAT Kats hadn't fired any arms of their own – nothing her weapon could have interacted with. And, the weapon's blast had *only* influenced their minds. So, their switching bodies had been no defective side effect, but the weapon's main function.

_"And, if its function is to mind-swap two persons, then it should be possible to reverse the swap, too,"_ Jake had said.

Chance hadn't said it openly, but he disagreed. Jake's logic contained a simple inaccuracy: Weapons didn't have an "auto-reverse" button. And, though Chance would gladly have taken his friend's words as true, he feared that the chances for such a thing were slim.

Nonetheless, on one point Jake was absolutely right: The Metallikats didn't invent weapons; they stole them! There could be no harm in asking Professor Hackle if the gun was his creation. Even if he could not undo what had been done to them, perhaps he could tell them what they were dealing with.

Chance put the yogurt and the spoon away and listened closely to Jake's telephone conversation. He could see his alter ego's shoulders sag just as Jake mumbled a disillusioned, "No?"

He sighed. _I feared this, but it was worth a shot, buddy!_

Jake kept talking to the professor, but now his answers were reduced to single words and grunts.

Chance looked down, frustrated, and noticed that his shirt – Jake's shirt – was buttoned up the wrong way. Adding a second sigh to his first, he maladroitly buttoned it anew.

_It took me a whole five minutes to button it up, and I didn't even do that right. Jake, your fingers are too slim for this task!_

"Ohm… Thanks, professor!" Jake hung up.

"What is it, Jake?" Chance asked when his mirror image smiled back at him.

"The weapon isn't Hackle's. But, when he still worked at Pumadyne, a science team developed something that could be just what we're searching for: a portable mind transfer apparatus that was stolen a few years ago. Hackle didn't work on the project himself, but he still knows some scientist who did. He promised to talk to a Doctor Ohm directly after our phone call.

C'mon, Jake," Jake called his friend good-humoredly, "the doctor will have been waiting for the SWAT Kats for half an hour already by the time we finish dressing." And, he headed for the hangar.

Chance started after him, but stopped instantly again. _Wait a sec; did he just call me Jake?_

_By the time we finish dressing…?_ "Aww, crud, I just managed to button up the shirt!"

* * *

A subdued humming started as some hidden mechanism opened the Metallikat's eyes. Optical sensors scanned and analyzed the incoming visuals. A crosscheck with the internal database categorized and identified the data thus received in nanoseconds.

As a result, Mac recognized his wife's face.

"What… What happened?"

"You had a power failure. Your power source was busted from ya being squeezed under that ceiling. I rigged it up again."

Mac made some scans. "Hey, my power's just back to 89 percent!"

Molly slammed her fist down on her husband's head.

"Ouff… Hey, whattas that for? Ouff… Wouldya stop that!" he protested about the second whack.

"I supported your heavy form when your motor activities ceased, got you in and out of the car, spent the whole night stealing spare parts and fixing ya up, and whaddo I get…?

'Hey, my power's just back to 89 percent!'

I should've dumped ya off at some distant place to rust to powder!"

"I just meant," Mac hastily threw in, "Why didn't ya buy me a new power core from our plunder money?"

"There's no money!" Molly snapped. "I couldn't get both you and the load out of the casino fast enough. You *or* the money! I decided wrong, canhead!"

"You… We lost our booty?" Mac corrected himself. "Wait! Did the other thing work? This weapon we got from this jerk?"

"Yeah…"

"And?"

"The SWAT Kats switched bodies," Molly said.

"THE SWAT KATS! That's…" he started to complain, but his wife silenced him.

"…That's what'll surely keep 'em busy for the next days. They don't know what's happened to 'em. And, while they try to figure that out, we'll get ourselves some load from MegaKat City's Mint."

She smiled. "On their own, the Enforcers will never be able to stop us. The Mint's a sitting duck this time. And, from the spare money, we'll get ya a new power core."

Mac was still left in doubt. "What if the SWAT Kats show up even so?"

Molly Mange took the mind transfer gun from her thigh compartment and shoved it into Mac's face. "If they come to help Commander Feral, we'll greet 'em with this and finish the job!"

Now, Mac grinned, too. "Let's go shopping!"


	5. Pumadyne explanations

"Come in." Dr. Ohm swung around on his chair.

The door opened, and the SWAT Kats walked into his lab, the caramel-furred kat named Razor first, followed by the other one called T-Bone. Doctor Ohm saw them in the flesh for the first time.

Like every kat not in mortal fright from some villain's attack, he asked himself if *he* could identify the kats under these masks. And, like every other kat, he had to negate the question.

"Dr. Ohm? Professor Hackle told us you'd know something about this mind swapper weapon that…"

"It's no weapon," Ohm threw in, realizing that the formalities had been cut short. "It is a highly-advanced gadget in the form of a handgun for practical reasons, but it was never considered a firearm. If we speak about the same thing, that is." He gave a short sketch of the device.

Both SWAT Kats nodded their affirmative.

"It's an expensive, indeed very expensive, prototype of espionage gadgetry."

"Espionage…?" The look under Razor's mask was plain incredulity; even Dr. Ohm could see that.

"For undercover operations," he continued. "Perfect moles…

Imagine you'd want to infiltrate an enemy organization. You pick out a suitable target person, a so-called 'host,' and let an agent observe him for a longer period. Let him analyze and train to learn the host's characteristics and habits: What the host does, where he goes, what he likes to eat and drink, how he walks, whom he meets; you get the picture.

Then, you abduct the host. With the help of Pumadyne's Mind Transfer Device, the agent and the host swap bodies. And, while you keep the agent's body, who now hosts the target person's mind, imprisoned and under close control, your agent, now in the host's body, infiltrates the enemy organization.

He knows the host's behavior, his lifestyle, and, in the enemy's body, he's invulnerable to retina scans, blood or urine analysis, can pass through every voice-controlled door and sluice."

Again, there was this skeptical look, on both vigilantes' faces this time.

"Thus, you get a perfect mole."

"But, how'd the agent get his body back?" the slender kat asked.

"You never tested it!" his partner declared simultaneously, and with finality.

"Ehm… We *did* test it. We used the prototype in a series of tests on experimental rats. The mind transfer process was still unpredictable, and the device had some other flaws as well. That's why we tested it on the lab animals. We never came as far as to test it on kats when the device was stolen four years ago. But…"

"But?"

Ohm sighed. "But, the thief did. Two security guards were caught in the gadget's beam, and their minds were successfully transferred onto each other's body."

"Then, I ask again: How do these kats get their bodies back?"

"That's the unpredictable factor in the mind transfer process."

Dr. Ohm heard Razor's mumbled groan of, "I knew it!" He hurried with his explanation.

"The test rats eventually got their minds back, only we couldn't say when this happened. Sometimes, it took up to a week. Sometimes, just one day. The length of the interval varied randomly, without any recognizable pattern. And, we couldn't make the swap last, as we wanted to.

You see, when we lost the Mind Transfer Device, it was useless. We couldn't ensure a lasting result, which implied that an agent might switch into his own body again *at any time*. If this happened too soon, then this would ruin the work of months, and furthermore tell the enemies about a possible infiltration of their organization.

Regrettably, this was a problem we never solved."

"Does that mean that after one week, at the utmost, such a nightmare would end if the Metallikats started to use the device as a weapon?" the slim tom asked.

"One week was the longest period we got when we did the timing on our lab rats test series. We don't have enough data to serve as an indication about how long a mind swap would last on kats.

But, it would surely last longer. Kirk and Ray, the two security guards who were affected by the device, swapped bodies for a little more than two years."

"TWO YEARS?" his guests shouted in shock.

"Perhaps it usually lasts only for a year, maybe for ten years. We can't really say. The range of the mind transfer beam doesn't exceed twelve feet, so, hopefully, the Metallikats won't use the device, and we'll never have to find out!"

Razor turned away muttering, but his burly partner asked a question before Doctor Ohm could wonder much about it.

"How does the gadget work?"

"I can't answer that question to your satisfaction, young fellow. Brain research is outside my field. Dr. Stone is the expert when it comes to neuropsychological questions, and the Mind Transfer Device is mostly his work. Physics is my area, really. I just helped with the construction of the device because it created a heavy magnetic field on activation. One of the other flaws the thing had.

The device has the form of a handgun as that curiously gave the one who fired the best protection against the magnetic field. But, we never came to reduce the field's intensity to the acceptable level of a magnetic resonance. Our test objects, the lab rats, were always confused and occasionally irresponsive the first hours after a mind transfer, and the security guards experienced a similar disorientation. The magnetic radiation was too high."

"You wanted to trim that down, and also make the transfer last for an infinite period," the tabby said musingly. "And, how would the agent get back into his body? Once the mole mission was completed?"

"Simple," Dr. Ohm answered. "The agent and the host would undergo another treatment with the Mind Transfer Device to retake their original bodies."

His partner spun around on the spot and faced the Doctor again. "That's it? Just that – shoot at them for a second time and everything's fine?"

"Well, it worked on the rats, but we don't have any data abo…"

"So, where's this Dr. Stone? He can give us another of these guns so we can thwart any Metallikat thread!"

"I'm afraid there are no other guns, and Doctor Stone doesn't work for Pumadyne any more.

The Mind Transfer Prototype was stolen; we would have had to build the device anew. That would have taken much time, and it still had its defects.

As I said, the Mind Transfer Device was highly expensive, and building a second one and paying the fines for exceeding the deadline overstepped Pumadyne's possibilities. It was comparatively cheap to stop the development, pay up the fines for non-compliance with the contract, and to make a deal with the two security officers in private. So, Pumadyne's officials considered the matter closed.

When Dr. Stone was informed about the decision, he was so furious about the cut, he gave them his notice and simply disappeared. Any further development ceased when he left Pumadyne…"

"The Metallikats have the only existing prototype?"

Dr. Ohm nodded.

***

Razor jumped into the TurboKat's rear compartment, landing unsteadily in his seat. Leaps and sprints still screwed up his sense of balance sometimes, thanks to the physical dissimilarities between his and T-Bone's stature.

T-Bone's settling down was likewise hard. "Just glad you were right, buddy! The mind transfer is reversible. This feeling like I'm walking on jelly will stop once we get a grip on the device!"

"We have to find the Metallikats first, T-Bone."

"Don't worry about that, ace. In case you haven't noticed: the bad guys show up *too often* - not the other way round!

They appear. We bring them in. They break out of jail. We bring them in. They escape again. We bring them in again. They'll never learn it! They'll show up sooner than you think."

The jet's alarm started out just when T-Bone lifted the TurboKat from the ground.

He managed a perfect copy of his own smirk on Razor's face. "See? There they are already!

Yes, Ms. Briggs?" he spoke into his head mike after activating a button.

"Razor, it's the Metallikats again!"

In the backseat, Razor had to grin.

"They just stopped the Metallikat Express at MegaKat City's Mint, after plunging the traffic on downtown's arterial roads into chaos with their driving style."

"Don't you worry, Ms. Briggs, we're already in the neighborhood," T-Bone said. "The Metallikats were lucky yesterday, they won't dodge us again. Razor and I will take them in!"

He activated the boosters and ended the call, leaving a perplexed Callico Briggs wondering about 'Razor's' final statement.


	6. Revisiting MegaKat City Mint

It wasn't too far from Dr. Ohm's lab to the MegaKat City Mint. Doctor Ohm worked in one of Pumadyne's older facilities, near the city center. Enforcer Headquarters, by contrast, was a bit out of the way. Therefore, a red-and-black colored jet reached the Mint long before some grey Enforcer choppers could.

The SWAT Kats landed the TurboKat inside the Mint's fencing, in front of a large quadratic building. An oversized sign above the front entrance stated "M K MINT" in capital letters. A bit off to the right side of the entrance, the new white roughcast wall had a gaping hole where the Metallikat Express was parked. The Metallikats had used it as a battering ram to enter the building.

"They don't come up with anything new anymore," T-Bone protested, standing up. "What about us? Same procedure as the last time; blast ourselves our own door to gain entrance?"

"Sure, why not. I don't see Feral anywhere," Razor answered, smirking, and slipped his glovatrix on.

The vigilantes hopped out of the jet.

"Whooaaa." Razor lost his balance and landed on his rear. He looked up to his partner and saw his own face looking down at him with a stunned expression. Quickly, he got back to his feet.

"Let's use the front entrance!" they both had the same idea.

***

The blue van outdid the Enforcers in reaching the Mint, yet news reporter Ann Gora had the irksome feeling that they'd arrived too late already. She could have sworn that T-Bone had sat on the ground when they had closed in enough to see the SWAT Kats behind their jet.

Anyway, she hadn't gotten it on camera. There was nothing to present the viewers. If they had just arrived a minute earlier…

Johnny stepped on the brake, and the van halted beside the fencing. "I don't think this is a good idea, Annie."

"It's a fabulous idea, Johnny," she opposed. "Our report of the Annual Charity Gambling yesterday was a catastrophe.

We just got a shot of a set of steel doors until the SWAT Kats arrived. That's not what our audience is used to seeing! And, then, Lt. Commander Steele denied us entrance when they blasted the door away." She bristled. "Lieutenant Commander Steele! Yesterday was not only a ratings fiasco but also extraordinarily humiliating.

That won't happen twice! I won't wait for the Enforcers to get in my way."

"I still think you shouldn't walk into the Mint!" Johnny objected. "You remember what happened when you sneaked into the mine to report about the missing miners?"

But, Ann Gora climbed out of the van nonetheless, and checked her camera. "That was different. There are no mutated monsters in the Mint, and the SWAT Kats are inside the building already." She put on the news reporter smile she had trained so well. "I'll be in safe hands!"

Johnny cursed silently, and Ann knew she had him right where she wanted him to be.

"You're sure I can't send live from the inside?"

He shook his head. "The video signal can't pass through the lead in the Mint's walls. You'll have to tape it; there's no other choice!"

"Okay, get ready. I'll just do the intro live, then." She walked through the shattered fence and heard Johnny's faint "Good luck!" before he turned to the van's equipment.

Ann had walked ten meters when Johnny's voice came over her ear mike. "Okay, Annie, you're on in… Three… Two…" Pause.

"This is Ann Gora, Kats Eye News, live from the MegaKat City Mint." She aimed her camera on the Mint's entrance, so that the door was not in the center, but on the left side of her focus. She knew Johnny would lay a photo of her over the picture before it was sent in to the editor, and she didn't want it to overlap with the sign above the door.

"In the building before me, the money we use every day is pressed. Our well-known coins, but, more importantly, also our bills of every single denomination.

Next, she panned to the Metallikat Express.

"Seemingly, this concentration of money makes the Mint an alluring target for the Metallikats' raids. After their unsuccessful incursion of the Annual Charity Gambling yesterday, Mac and Molly Mange have returned to another scene on their long list of unsuccessful break-ins.

The picture you can now see is no archive material. The robotic couple has again invaded the just rebuilt MegaKat City Mint. But, today, while the Enforcers are taking a long time in coming, the SWAT Kats have already appeared on the spot. Our masked heroes are right now inside the building, trying to stop the artificial evil.

Kats Eye News will try to get a recording of what is going on inside. We'll be back as soon as possible."

She squeezed past the Metallikat Express into the Mint and looked for the main vault.

***

T-Bone noticed that the Mint's interior had changed completely since the last Metallikat attack. A titanium-strengthened door had been fitted into the walls where the main vault had formerly been. Usually, this door was a tough nut to crack for any robber. For the Metallikats, T-Bone guessed, it had just been a delay of a couple of seconds.

The molten rest of the door formed a grotesque statue on the floor. Behind, a staircase led into darkness. The Mint's new vault lay underground.

Razor was in the lead and ran down the stairs, and, jumping over a round, ten-feet-thick precious metal disc – the reinforced vault's new door – stormed into the chamber behind. T-Bone followed him promptly.

The new vault was larger; the comparison to the casino's strongroom suggested itself on T-Bone instantly. A six-feet high and twenty-feet long large wall unit stood in the center of the room, to store the sheaves. It was almost empty, except for some sheaves of Ones. Behind it, T-Bone could make out a second wall unit standing parallel to the first.

In the aisle in between, the Metallikats were busily filling their sacks on the second wall unit.

Just in that moment, Mac turned around and his and T-Bone's eyes locked.

"Told ya they'd show up," the robotic kat spat at his wife. "They're faster than ever!"

He let go of the loot and fired with his laser at Razor through the empty shelves, running to the left side.

Razor activated his glovatrix shield and deflected the beams. "I'll take Mac," he shouted and ran to meet the Metallikat.

"Then, I guess I'll take Molly," T-Bone said to no one in particular and raised his glovatrix.

He fired two Spider Missiles at the upper part of the wall unit, causing the empty construct to tip over. Caught in between the shelves, Molly barely managed to drop her sack and to jump out of the right side of the collapsing alcove in time.

T-Bone had achieved what he wanted: the Metallikats had split up.

Molly came back to her feet. T-Bone shot a plain missile at her. The explosion threw her back and she landed in a kat-high brown pallet. On her impact, the pallet blew open, and unprinted bank bill paper flew to all sides.

T-Bone set after her, but the she-kat recovered fast. In a flash, she had her weapon trained on T-Bone and fired.

Surprised by her speed, T-Bone had not much time to react. He dived for cover behind the next pallet.

Molly's bullets slammed into the pallet and tore the brown covering to shreds.

Breathing hard, T-Bone realized that her shots hadn't penetrated the pallet's content. He took a second to look at the labeling: "Quarters. Punched at MK Mint 1995. Twelve crates at one half short ton each. Total sum of pall…"

The pallet contained coins.

The firing ceased. T-Bone sighed. _Saved by spare change. What a day!_

_Each crate weights one half short ton…?_

He made a forward dive just as Molly's missile detonated on the pallet. A crate came down from the topmost tire and slammed down on the spot where T-Bone had knelt. It burst open, and hundreds of coins rolled out, spreading out over the floor.

Molly fired a second explosive at the same time as T-Bone activated his cement machine gun and fired back.

Molly's aim was lousy, but T-Bone had no time to take cover when the missile hit the floor five meters in front of him. Razor's light body was flung through the air as T-Bone was lifted off the ground. He was thrown against another pallet with coins and went down in a heap from the unusually hard impact.

Behind the pallet, Ann Gora let out a surprised shriek, and her camera fell to the floor, shattering.

T-Bone's cement slugs had found their mark, hit Molly's firearm and clogged up her weapon's muzzle.

The Metallikat knew better than to shoot with a blocked gun. She reached for her thigh pocket instead, took out the Mind Transfer Device and walked over to the SWAT Kat.

"That's not exactly how it was planned," she said upon walking over, "but we never told him we had a deal, anyway!

Ready to switch bodies again, T-Bone?" she addressed the slim kat correctly. She aimed the device on Ann Gora and T-Bone, who just came back to his senses. "You'll be in the media more often than you really want to in the future!"

She pressed the trigger.

The world turned sheer green, and T-Bone felt an all-to-familiar sense of disorientation.

***

A slight jolt went through the glovatrix as the shield expanded. It came up right in time for Razor to ward off Mac Mange's first laser shot.

"I'll take care of Mac," Razor shouted to his friend, deflecting a second shot and dodging a third. A forth blast that Razor thought would miss him ripped through his uniform on his shoulder. For a split-second, Razor could see the golden fur under the tearing, and first he was nonplussed.

_Crud, I'll never get used to this! Glad he missed. I just borrowed this body and I plan to give it back to T-Bone in one piece!_

With a determined grimace, he reflected Mac's fifth shot. The beam shot back to where it came from and hit Mac in the chest. The Metallikat doubled over and slammed into a second pallet with unprinted bill paper, simultaneously with his wife.

Razor stopped, lifted his glovatrix arm and deactivated his shield when Mac came suddenly bursting out of his paper encasement, tackling the tabby.

Kat and robot fell to the floor and rolled down the gangway in one big mass of fur and metal until they bumped into the disk of the vault's door lying in their way.

Mac got a hold on Razor's neck with his left hand and pushed the SWAT Kat up with him. Before Razor could react, Mac had both hands around the brawny tom's throat and strengthened the grip.

Razor wriggled in the Metallikat's death grip. His eyes became slits, he felt the blood pulse in his ears, but his lungs couldn't fill with the oxygen he needed so desperately.

"Seems yer not so agile now, Razor," Mac taunted, sure of victory.

Razor saw T-Bone slam against the pallet with coins, saw *his own body* go down from the impact, and he heard Molly's voice in the background, yet strangely clearly: "That's not exactly how it was planned, but we never told him we had a deal, anyway!". He tried to calm down. No, he was not quite as agile as in his own body, but he was in T-Bone's body…

He pried at Mac's arms, to whose surprise he was able to force away from his neck.

"But…" he wheezed, "I'm stronger now!"

Behind Mac, he saw Molly aim at his partner and Ann Gora. Razor didn't spend time asking himself where she'd come from as worry about his friend wiped out everything else. A thought passed his mind.

_The device! It creates a strong magnetic field!_

"'Fun's over, flyboy!'" Planting his feet on Mac's chest, Razor kicked with all the strength T-Bone possessed.

The Metallikat sailed through the air, right into the line of Molly's fire as she released the charge. A jade beam fanned out and swallowed T-Bone and Mac.

The intense magnetic wave fried the android's electronic systems. Mac instantaneously blacked out.

Molly dropped the device and turned around, screaming. Her eyes glowered in pure fury when she aimed her weapon's arm at Razor, who had fallen down to his knees, wheezing.

***

"M-A-C!"

Molly's yell trumpeted in T-Bone's skull. Dazed, he put his hands to his head, and realized that they were caramel-colored.

_Razor's hands. What…?_

T-Bone saw Mac lying next to him, inactive. And, he realized. Razor had thrown Mac into the beam, and the Metallikat had blocked it off, so that Ann Gora hadn't been hit. As an artificial 'brain' was incompatible to a kat's mind, they hadn't swapped bodies.

He was still in Jake's body.

He looked up. Molly had forgotten about him, her full scorn directed on Razor. She would shoot at him even with her clogged weapon. T-Bone had to do something fast…

His gaze fell upon the now discarded Mind Transfer Device. T-Bone leaped for it and brought it up on Molly's upper body just as she was about to fire. T-Bone pressed the trigger, and the Metallikat stood motionless.

Then, she fell over onto her back.

Directly onto T-Bone.

The slim kat couldn't move out of the way fast enough and was buried beneath her.

Razor came to his help and rolled the Metallikat away from him. "T-Bone, you okay?"

T-Bone heard his partner's worried voice, yet the words didn't register. The world started to twist, but one image was clear in his mind: The image of the Mind Transfer Device beside his right hand.

Molly had fallen onto it and the gadget had broken into dozens of pieces.

A chuckle erupted in his spinning mind. Even Razor wouldn't be able to fix *that*! With a, "Crud," he lost consciousness.

***

Johnny kneaded his knuckles – a habit that revealed his nervousness. Annie hadn't come back yet, and the monitors just showed static since she had walked into the Mint.

_I told her it was a stupid idea!_

Cursing himself for letting her go, Johnny abandoned his monitors. The level of noise rose dramatically when he opened the door and climbed out of the news van.

The area was teeming with Enforcers. The city's defenders had finally arrived and were sealing off the building. Johnny could make out Commander Feral, who prepared to invade the Mint with a group of his soldiers.

Johnny started to run. He would ask the commander to watch out for her. The Metallikats were unpredictable in their attacks; it would be better if the Enforcers found her before *they* did!

He had just made it past the fence when someone came out of the building.

_Ann!_

In a flash, Johnny ran up to her, ignoring the Enforcers' shouts to stop. She looked shaken, but otherwise fine. "Annie, thank the Heavens you're okay!"

"Not quite because of the Heavens." She hesitated. "More thanks to the SWAT Kats."

"And, the sto…" Johnny trailed off as he saw the shattered camera in her hand.

"Ohh…"

In silence, the news team walked back to the van. Annie shuffled her feet. Johnny knew it when she took on this gait: She had been close to getting an incredible story, but, with the camera lost, it had dissolved into thin air.

Johnny looked back, and saw T-Bone emerge from the Mint's main entrance. He was carrying Razor's limp form.

"What happened to Razor? Is he hurt?"

"Razor…?" Ann looked at him, genuinely puzzled. She turned around and observed the tabby as he walked over to their jet with his friend in his arms.

She took in a deep breath. "You know, perhaps some stories just aren't meant to be broadcast."


	7. Two friends at the salvage yard

The laughter came from the living room. Chance pricked up his ears. Yes, it was definitely Jake's laughs.

Chance crossed the room and slowly opened up the door to the living room. Jake sat on the couch, watching TV. He didn't notice Chance as he folded his arms and leaned against the doorframe, studying him.

"Oh, here's a good one: The Enforcers received an emergency call yesterday from a hysterical citizen who complained about his neighbor having stolen and threatened to burn his kat."

_Chance Furlong watches the David Litterbin Show! Now, there's a picture,_ Chance had to grin at the thought.

"A three-car Enforcer patrol raced to the given address head-over-heels, kicked in the kidnapper's front door SWAT Kat style and stormed into the house. They found him in front of his fireplace, just about to throw the victim into the fire.

Only the victim was a shrub*."

A wave of laughter went through the audience, and Jake joined in, although Chance couldn't really see the joke.

"I looked it up, Fuzzy. A 'kat' is a plant. Whoever gave the shrub that name must have been Mr. Originality. 'Kat'..." Litterbin grunted.

Jake roared with laughter.

Chance's grin spread into a smile. It was more or less the first time he'd heard Jake laugh in the previous nine days.

"There exist thousands and thousands of words, and they chose 'kat' for this plant."

As he had guessed rightly before his passing out, the Mind Transfer Device was broken beyond the possibility of repair. Jake had taken the pieces with him upon leaving the Mint, working on them nearly all day for the last week, but it was hopeless. And, despite being the technical genius he was, even Jake didn't know how to reverse the mind swap without the device.

The last week hadn't exactly been funny. Their sense of balance had improved steadily the longer they inhabited each other's bodies, but there were still frustrating relapses sometimes. And, on Monday, the unannounced visit of one of Jake's high school comrades had been more horrible than joyful.

"At least that explains why Dr. Viper is so keen on taking over Mega*Kat* City!"

Chance shifted his position, and Jake turned his head. His smiled as he saw Chance at the door.

Chance returned the smile. He too had searched for a way to undo the body switch, without success. Now, watching Jake's tabby features, he realized that it didn't matter.

It didn't matter that they were trapped in each other's body. Nothing had really changed! Jake was still Jake, and he was still himself, even though their outward appearance had transformed. And, their good mood was returning. It was something the Metallikats hadn't been able to destroy.

So, he was Razor now, and Jake was T-Bone. They'd have to get used to their new alias names. But, that was all, really. Behind the masks, they were still the same, and whether it would take ten years until they'd get their bodies back or just one - it didn't matter.

They'd face it together. As they always did!

Jake broke out into another fit of laughter from some comment Chance had missed. Chance looked at the tiny television screen. Why not watch some Litterbin?

He walked over to the couch. After the first step, he suddenly *sat* on the couch.

_What…?_

Jake was not so lucky. "Haha… Ohhhhh…" and he fell on all fours, having reappeared in his own body in mid-step.

Chance sprang up and gazed down on his striped arms. With a beaming face, he went over to Jake and helped him up. Jake's smile was likewise broad.

Chance gave him a friendly slap on his head. "I took good care of your body, and you're trying to break your neck the minute you take over!"

"We have our bodies back," Jake stated in surprise. "Chance, we swapped bodies for only ten days! Why…?"

"I don't know, buddy, and I don't care, either. I'm more interested in a little competition…

Now that I am Chance again, you won't stand a chance on the obstacle course." He gave Jake a challenging look.

Jake stretched his arms, testing his reclaimed body. "Two outta three. Your cockiness will soon end!"

"That does it! Prepare to get your tail whipped."

"We'll see about that, pal," Jake said with gleaming eyes as they headed for the lockers.

"You know," Chance said cheerfully when he rummaged for his army boots, "I've come to think that the Metallikats' plan was doomed to fail anyway."

"How's that?"

"Well, we had some severe problems being stuck in each other's body, but even so, we finished them off effortlessly," he boasted. "The SWAT Kats don't give way just because of some problems with keeping balance."

He grinned. "We might fall, but we won't go down!"

"You're right, Chance, their plan was doomed to fail. I never thought about that."

Chance looked to the side and saw that Jake just stood in front of his locker, pondering.

"What's the matter, Jake? No shirking now!"

Jake looked up, as if returning from afar. "What…?"

"No shirking now! Don't dream, get dressed!"

The slim tom smirked. "I was just considering giving you a 10-meter start."

"Ha, funny. You'll be laughing on the other side of your face before you know it!"

Jake had caught up with Chance on dressing. "You're on!"

Good-humored, the twosome left for an amicable contest on the salvage yard.

* * *

*"kat" - variant of "khat", an evergreen shrub cultivated in the Middle East and Africa


	8. Epilogue

EPILOGUE

He stood at the window, gazing down on the bustling streets beneath, observing the crowded sidewalks and pelican crossings, the stop-and-go rush hour traffic.

The normal chaos.

He sighed, buttoning his jacket. In five minutes, he'd be amongst them. There was no way to avoid it, but he *loathed* these drives. In the streets, his car was just one between hundreds, and the other drivers didn't care about authority or status. They'd cut in on him if they could. They always did that.

Maybe he would get a private chopper once he was commander.

Lieutenant Commander Steele cast a final look on the world outside and turned to the door. He locked his office and walked down the floor, past two captains who greeted him just with a nod of their heads.

Once he was commander…

That objective had faded out of sight again, thanks to these incompetent, brainless blockheads.

He reached the elevator and ordered it up with an enraged fist-slam on the button.

Years of planning. Destroyed!

He should have chosen someone else. But, whom…?

Hard Drive – too self-centered.

Dr. Viper – such things didn't really interest the mad scientist. Plants, and *just* plants, did.

DarkKat… Steele quivered at the mere thought.

No, it had had to be the Metallikats. They had been the only criminals powerful and interested enough to hear out his deal. And, they had screwed it up!

The elevator announced itself with a soft ping. Steele stepped inside and pressed "S3" – the lowest parking deck. The doors closed, and the elevator dropped slowly.

The Mind Transfer Device, unfortunately, was only a near-range weapon. For quite a while, Steele had waited for the perfect moment where he would have been alone with the commander. His Enforcer comrades didn't seem to accept him as their future commander with Feral around. But, if *he* was Commander Feral…

But, the moment had never come.

*Thankfully*!

Steele could well remember the horror and the desperation he had felt when he had realized that the two Pumadyne security guards had switched into their normal bodies again. His mind boggled at the thought of what would have happened if he had executed his original plan. He would have transferred 'Steele' to some remote outpost the Enforcers had. This abandoned salvage yard perhaps. If he and the commander had automatically switched bodies again after two years, *he* would have suddenly found himself to be outcast.

A *big* decline after having been Enforcer commander!

But, the second plan had been flawless. And, the Metallikats had screwed it.

Steele snarled.

He had planed everything meticulously. How the Metallikats should split up in the casino… How he had made Feral notice that Molly went for the vault… How he had waited inside the Royal Lion Casino with the thugs until the SWAT Kats had arrived, and sent one of them into the strongroom after Feral…

A mind exchange between the commander and a SWAT Kat would have opened him all doors.

Feral would have discovered the vigilantes' identities, and gone to the media with his knowledge. The SWAT Kats would have been jailed, and the commander would have been examined by the Pumadyne specialists to search for a way to reverse his condition.

That would have taken time – a long time, to be precise. Time in which Steele would have been in command over the Enforcers. And, when the mind swap would have dissolved after two years, he would have had all the threads in his hands already.

Nobody would have ever suspected him to have given the Mind Transfer Device to the Metallikats. A 'late appearance' of his Enforcers now and then when the robotic couple raided another target would have seen to that.

He stood with clenched fists as the elevator stopped and the doors opened to the parking deck. The Charity Gambling had been held twelve days ago now, and yet… He couldn't get over it…

_"That's a very nice watch you got there, lieutenant commander."_

Those stupid robots!

Steele stepped out of the elevator and walked over to his car.

At least he had left no traces behind. He had hindered that troublesome news reporter Ann Gora from filming in the casino, and the SWAT Kats had taken care of the Metallikats.

They had recovered, and were now imprisoned in a specially manufactured cell on Alkatraz Island, but they couldn't remember anything out of the week before their electromagnetically-caused shutdown. The magnetic radiation had deleted their active files – their latest memories.

It was the robotic counterpart to amnesia, only without hope of improvement.

They couldn't prove anything on him!

That was the one big advantage of being underestimated, of being thought a complete jerk. They didn't know just how creative he actually was…

He would find another way to gain leadership. Somehow…

Steele opened his car's door and climbed onto the driver's seat, starting the engine and pushing the vehicle into gear. His eyes fell onto the passenger's seat.

On it, in pieces, lay the Mind Transfer Device.

* * *

THE END


End file.
